Mara read the report three times.
It was short, clinical, and almost offensively bland.
SECTOR 7-RIDGE / PATROL UNIT 3
ANOMALOUS ILLUSION RESIDUALS DETECTED.
NO DIRECT CONTACT.
SCANNER MALFUNCTION LOGGED.
SECTOR CLEARED FOR FOLLOW-UP SWEEP.
"Malfunction," she said aloud.
The word tasted wrong.
Across the briefing room table, Lin kept their face very still.
The other agent from the patrol stood beside them, jaw tight, hands clasped behind their back like they were trying not to shake.
"You're sure that's all?" Mara asked.
"We swept the area twice," Lin said. "No live signatures, no physical traces. The distortion faded after thirty seconds. Scanner's being recalibrated."
Mara studied them.
Something in their stance had changed since the last briefing. Not huge. Just a fraction more weight on the back foot, shoulders a hair too tense.
Not fear.
Conflict.
"The scanners don't just 'malfunction,'" Mara said. "Not all at once, not with the redundancies we've got in place."
"It was an old section," the second agent said quickly. "Shield interference. Grid noise. The readings might have bounced."
Mara turned her attention to them.
"And the visual distortion?" she asked. "Describe it."
The agent hesitated.
Lin answered first.
"Localized shimmer," they said. "Like heat off metal, but without the temperature spike. It broke up when we approached. By the time we reached the junction, there was nothing solid to see."
Aiden's illusions had always done that held together until proximity and attention forced them to collapse.
Mara's fingers tightened around the edge of the tablet.
"You didn't see anyone," she said.
"No," Lin replied.
It wasn't quite a lie.
Not quite the truth either.
Mara watched Lin's pupils, their breathing pattern, the minute twitch at the corner of their mouth.
You didn't used to be this easy to read, she thought.
But that wasn't fair.
Lin hadn't changed.
The context had.
"You're sure," Mara said.
"Yes, Captain," Lin said.
The second agent's eyes flicked between them, wide.
Mara let the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable.
Then she nodded once.
"All right," she said. "Log the scanner issue with Technical. Flag the sector for a later pass. You're both off rotation for the next twelve hours. Get food, get sleep, recalibrate."
The second agent blinked, as if they'd expected something harsher.
Lin's shoulders dropped a fraction.
"Yes, Captain," they said.
They saluted and left, the door hissing shut behind them.
Mara stared at the empty space where they'd stood.
She wasn't stupid.
She hadn't built Orion by taking reports at face value.
If there had been real contact, why hide it?
Because they froze?
Because they failed?
Because they hesitated?
Or because something happened they couldn't explain in a way that fit the current story.
She pulled up Aiden's file again, eyes tracing familiar lines.
In the corner, the recorded footage from the convoy played on mute: Aiden stepping between Kael and the firing line, making a choice that had shattered ten years of predictability.
"Mara," a voice said from the doorway.
Rian.
He hovered just inside, as if testing whether the air would let him in.
"Permission to speak freely?" he asked.
"You usually do anyway," she said. "Come in."
He stepped closer.
"I heard about the 'malfunction,'" he said, adding the quotes with his voice. "You don't believe it."
"Do you?" she asked.
Rian shifted.
"I believe Lin knows what happens to people who report seeing ghosts," he said. "If they thought they saw Aiden and Kael and didn't bring them in…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't need to.
Mara tapped the table.
"Lin has a clean disciplinary record," she said. "Good judgment under pressure. They're not careless."
"Which means if they lied," Rian said, "they had a reason."
Mara's gaze sharpened.
"Are you suggesting Orion is contaminated?" she asked.
Rian flinched at the word.
"I'm suggesting that calling any doubt 'contamination' is exactly how we end up blind," he said. "If someone in the unit sees something that doesn't match the propaganda, are they supposed to shoot it or think about it?"
Mara's mouth tightened.
"The Board would say 'shoot,'" she said. "The protocols would say 'assess and respond.'"
"And you?" Rian asked.
She looked back at the report.
"At this moment," she said, "I say we don't have the luxury of throwing away competent agents because they might have seen too much. If I start purging my own people every time a narrative doesn't sit right in their stomach, I'll be alone in these tunnels."
Rian studied her.
"You think they saw him," he said.
"Yes," she said simply. "I think Aiden is testing the edges of our reach. And I think someone out there just failed to catch him."
Rian's chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with running drills.
"Is that good or bad?" he asked.
"It's information," Mara said. "Which is more than we had yesterday."
She turned the map display back on.
"Where was the 'malfunction'?" she asked.
Rian pointed to a highlighted junction.
"Here," he said. "Near the old flood bypass."
Mara traced three possible escape vectors from that point, her mind already running ahead.
"He's not just hiding," she said. "He's watching us. Learning our patterns. That means he's planning for something bigger than survival."
Rian thought of the Aiden he'd known always analyzing, always three moves ahead.
"That's what he does," he said.
Mara nodded.
"Then we adjust," she said. "If he wants to test Orion, we show him we're still the ones writing the rules of engagement."
She didn't say out loud that part of her was relieved.
If Aiden was testing them instead of attacking outright, it meant he wasn't gone completely.
Not yet.
In the underground transfer station, Lysa listened without interrupting.
Aiden finished the summary and fell quiet.
Kael, leaning against a crate nearby, added one last piece.
"Lin stood between the gun and his chest," he said. "That wasn't nothing."
Lysa rubbed a thumb along the edge of the table, thinking.
"So," she said. "We have confirmation that at least one Orion agent is willing to bend the story. Maybe two, if the partner doesn't run straight to Internal."
"And Mara?" Aiden asked. "What will she do with a report that vague?"
"Depends how tired she is," Lysa said. "Depends how much she wants to keep believing we're predictable."
She looked at Aiden.
"You did well," she said. "You didn't die. You gave someone a reason to question their orders. That's a better outcome than most first contact scenarios."
Kael snorted.
"Low bar," he said.
Lysa ignored him.
"But we can't base a strategy on hoping individual agents have crises of conscience at convenient times," she continued. "We need structural leverage."
"Such as?" Aiden asked.
"Such as something the Order can't spin away," Lysa said. "A recording, a leak, proof of what they're doing to Deviants in places the public still pretends don't exist."
Kael's mouth thinned.
"You mean the labs," he said.
"Yes," Lysa replied. "The ones they swear are 'containment facilities.' The ones where collars get tested on people who never come back."
Aiden felt his stomach twist.
"I've seen pieces," he said. "Not full records. We're compartmentalized for a reason."
"Exactly," Lysa said. "If we can cut through that compartmentalization, get our hands on something undeniable, then agents like Lin aren't alone. They become the first wave of a break, not isolated cracks we can't protect."
Kael straightened despite the ache in his muscles.
"You're talking about hitting a core facility," he said. "That's not a raid, that's a declaration of war."
Lysa smiled, sharp.
"What do you think we've been in this whole time?" she asked. "A misunderstanding?"
A murmur spread through the room as people picked up on the shift in her tone.
"We've been reacting," she said, louder now, addressing more than just Aiden and Kael. "Evading. Surviving. That changes nothing about how they talk about us. Traitors. Contaminants. Monsters in the dark. If the city is going to call us a threat, we might as well become a threat to the right people."
"And the civilians caught in the crossfire?" Aiden asked.
Lysa's gaze didn't waver.
"We design the operation so there isn't any," she said. "Or as little as humanly possible. You're here precisely so we don't fight like cornered animals."
Kael leaned forward.
"You already have a target," he said. "Don't you."
Lysa tapped a point on the map spread over the table.
An old industrial district. Layered shields. Restricted access.
Aiden recognized the grid pattern.
"Sector Twelve‑North," he said quietly. "Bio‑containment hub."
Kael's jaw clenched.
"That's where they took me first," he said. "Before they decided I was interesting enough for the main labs."
Aiden glanced at him.
"You remember it," he said.
"Hard to forget a place where they decide how much pain is useful," Kael answered.
Lysa's expression softened by a millimeter.
"We've tried to hit it before," she said. "Years back. Lost good people. Their security was… overkill even then. Since Kael, since the new collars, it's only gotten worse."
"Then why try again?" Aiden asked.
"Because it's the beating heart of their lie," Lysa said. "It's where they turn fear into policy. Where they take Deviants who could be living in the city and lock them in steel and light till they're compliant or dead."
She looked at Kael.
"You break a collar," she said, "that's hope. You drag proof of those rooms into the light, that's change."
Kael rubbed absently at the fading mark around his throat.
"And where do I fit in?" he asked. "Beyond being a cautionary legend."
"You're our key," Lysa said. "You've been inside. Your power can disrupt their systems. Their shields are calibrated to collar‑dampened output, not what you are now."
"And me?" Aiden asked.
Lysa's smile returned, wry and knowing.
"You're our blueprint," she said. "You know their security doctrine. You know how far they'll go to protect that place. You know Mara."
Aiden felt the room tilt slightly around that last name.
"She won't let us touch Sector Twelve," he said. "Not if she can help it."
"Which is why Orion will be our biggest obstacle," Lysa said. "And our biggest opportunity. Agents who defend that place while knowing what's inside it will be lost to us. Agents who flinch… can be brought over."
Kael shook his head.
"This is big," he said. "Bigger than anything you've run with us so far."
"Yes," Lysa said simply. "Because you changed the stakes the moment you walked out of that convoy together. They're rewriting laws on the fly to deal with you. We can't keep playing small."
The murmur in the safehouse grew, fear and excitement braided tight.
Aiden saw faces young, old, scarred, determined.
He also saw the casualty reports this plan would generate.
"If we go for Twelve‑North and fail," he said, "they'll crack down hard. More patrols. More collars. The Board will have justification for every extreme measure they've wanted to sign off on for years."
"And if we don't go," Lysa replied, "they'll do it anyway. Slower. Quieter. With no one to point a camera at the truth."
Kael barked a humorless laugh.
"Congratulations," he said. "You've built an argument I can't punch holes in without punching myself."
Lysa inclined her head.
"I'll take that as assent," she said.
She turned to the room.
"Rest in shifts," she ordered. "We move in forty‑eight hours. In that time, I want updated patrol patterns, shield frequency estimates, and every scrap of intel anyone has ever heard about Twelve‑North. Talk to ghosts if you have to. We're not going in blind."
The Network scattered into motion.
Maps were pulled, old contacts pinged, hushed arguments flared and faded.
Kael waited until the noise covered their corner.
"Forty‑eight hours," he said softly. "That's… not a lot of time to become the person who attacks a place like that."
"You already are," Aiden said.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Kael replied.
He rested his forearms on his knees, fingers laced together to keep them from shaking.
Aiden watched him for a moment.
"You don't have to do this," he said. "Lysa will still try without you. She has before."
"And leave you to walk into that with a bunch of half‑trained spark‑throwers?" Kael said. "No. If Twelve‑North is where they break people like me, I want to be there when it starts to fall apart."
His gaze flicked up to Aiden.
"Besides," he added, "you're the one who wants the city to know this isn't a spell. That you chose this. What better stage than their favorite torture palace?"
Aiden winced at the phrase and didn't deny it.
He thought of his father in his office, of Mara reading redacted reports, of Lin staring down a corridor and choosing to lie.
Everything was straining.
Something had to give.
"Then we prepare," he said. "Properly. No heroics, no improvising for the sake of drama. We design this like a mission, not a vengeance fantasy."
Kael's smile was small and real.
"That's the agent talking," he said.
"It's the part of me that still wants us to survive," Aiden replied.
He reached for the map.
Kael shifted closer, shoulder brushing his as they bent over the lines of the city together.
Somewhere above, in a different briefing room, Mara marked Twelve‑North on her own map, a red circle around a location that hadn't seen a serious threat in years.
"Guard everything," the Board had told her. "But guard this most of all."
She'd thought it excessive, even before Aiden walked.
Now, as new directives scrolled across her display expanded security measures, upgraded collar protocols, authorization for lethal force against any attempt to breach containment she felt the weight of the place settle like a stone.
Whatever happened next, it would not be small.
The Order and the Flame were on a collision course.
The city, as usual, had no idea.